. . . the recording is fabulous. Yundi Li, the brilliant young Chinese pianist . . . has proved a technically astounding pianist who is by turns elegant and rambunctious, coolly expressive and white-hot. The surging, rhapsodic and daunting Prokofiev concerto is an ideal piece for him. He also gives a splendid account of the Ravel: crackling with energy in the first movement, dreamy in the bluesy Adagio assai and restlessly spirited in the finale . . . [Ozawa] leads exciting, richly colored and organic accounts of these familiar works. They whet my appetite for the concerts of this great orchestra in New York.

Record Review /
Anthony Tommasini,
The New York Times / 06. November 2007

Brilliance, poetry: Yundi Li has emerged as one of the more personable of the younger generation of pianists. There's no shortage of glittering brilliance, which is certainly called for in both works, but the Chinese pianist is no banger. He also has a genuine poetic side, allied to a lovely glowing tone . . . smart, suave performances, boldly but naturally recorded in live concerts.

The brilliant young Chinese pianist Yundi Li excels in Prokofiev¿s volatile, technically daunting Piano Concerto No. 2. He plays with expansive lyricism, surging power and, when called for, incisive attack. There is also a tart, exuberant and (in the Adagio assai) dreamy account of the Ravel concerto. Seiji Ozawa draws luminous sounds from the great Berlin Philharmonic.

Record Review /
Anthony Tommasini,
The New York Times / 30. November 2007

The final rush to judgment catapults us headlong into a kaleidoscopic abyss -- wild, to say the least! A delicious treat throughout, aided most pointedly by the engineering, courtesy of Klaus Hiemann.

Record Review /
Gary Lemco,
Audiophile Audition / 04. January 2008

. . . it is this imaginative pairing of concertos by Ravel and Prokofiev that really shows that he¿s got the goods to match the hype.

Record Review /
Brian Wise,
WNYC New York Public Radio / 14. January 2008

. . . among Prokoviev's five piano concertos, the No. 2 is not the most often recorded, and this new one with Yundi Li and Seiji Ozawa . . . and the Berlin Philharmonic is a highly desirable and recommended reading . . . Li's and Ozawa's Ravel Concerto is equally a success . . . Li's and Ozawa's reading . . . definitely belongs in the same class with the very best.

Record Review /
Jerry Dubins,
Fanfare (Tenafly, NJ) / 01. March 2008

This is a bracing release, in which Li's Ravel is very high on the list, with the Prokofiev adding uncommon interest. The sound . . . is full, vibrant, yet clear and never overloaded.

Record Review /
Stephen Pruslin,
International Record Review (London) / 01. April 2008

Deeply thoughtful and formidably virtuosic, he makes light work of Prokofiev's nightmarish technical demands. This is a really superb disc . . . Seiji Ozawa . . . is a quite wonderful accompanist, coaxing haunting, unforgettable sounds from the Berlin Phil . . . Ravel's an enchanting "jeu d'esprit". Certainly Yundi Li (superbly partnered by Seiji Ozawa and the Berlin Philharmonic) has few doubts about either concerto. Indeed, his performance of the Prokofiev, in its prodigious, unflagging power and brilliance, far surpasses any other in the catalogue . . . His moto perpetuo Scherzo is vivace with a vengeance and the colossal first movement's combined development and cadenza is played with an authority that will make lesser mortals pale with envy and admiration. He is no less attuned to Ravel's charm and vivacity, to music seen through a glass brightly rather than darkly, touching off the central Adagio with a moving simplicity and whirling us through the finale with a dazzling and engaging "joie de vivre". It only remains for met to add that this superlative young Chinese pianist is heard in the full glory of DG's sound at its most opulent and crystalline.

Record Review /
Bryce Morrison,
Gramophone (London) / 01. May 2008

Li already places himself among the twenty or so pianists to play every note of Prokofiev's colossal Second Piano Concerto, and his security is staggering . . . the hair-raising aspects of the last two movements remain breathtakingly clear.

Record Review /
David Nice,
BBC Music Magazine (London) / 01. July 2008

Poetry and Technique in a Rare State of Harmony

Seiji Ozawa and Yundi Li discuss their first recording collaboration, musical poetry and the classical music boom in China

The principal conductor's room at the Berlin Philharmonie still breathes the spirit of the early 1960s. Since Herbert von Karajan's time, no one has dared even so much as to move a single piece of furniture, let alone replace it. It is here that Seiji Ozawa and Yundi Li are to be found relaxing between two recording sessions for their first joint album. They are recording Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto and Ravel's G major Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker for Deutsche Grammophon. The Prokofiev is an early work - it dates from 1913 and was revised in 1923 - and is a dissonant, tempestuous and brutal piece recalling the suicide of the composer's friend Max Schmidthof, to whom it is dedicated. Ravel's neo-classical, fleet-footed and playful Concerto, by contrast, is a late work - it received its first performance in 1932. Seiji Ozawa and Yundi Li see this as an exciting coupling.

Ozawa, a Karajan pupil, has been music director of the Vienna State Opera for the last five years. Previously, for a legendary 29 years, he was principal conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which honoured him with the naming of Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the orchestra's summer home. Yundi Li entered the pantheon of great pianists when he won first prize at the 2000 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, a sensational victory after two competitions when no first prize had been awarded at all.

Yundi, you've chosen a demanding programme for your new Deutsche Grammophon album with Seiji Ozawa and the Berliner Philharmoniker. How do you feel about that?

Yundi Li: Maestro Ozawa has been an important mentor in my career. He has helped me with so many musical details and always takes great care over colour and the right tempo. Not all conductors are so attentive and supportive to their soloists. This recording is the first time we've worked together for Deutsche Grammophon, and it's also my debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the greatest orchestra in the world. I'm very excited!

But the two of you have obviously worked together before?

Seiji Ozawa: I first met Yundi Li three years ago. He auditioned for me in the Vienna State Opera Studio. The piano there is not very good - it's really just an opera studio - but Yundi played fantastically. His music has so much fantasy; he's a true musical poet. It's hard to find people like that nowadays. That may sound old-fashioned, but for me it was very fresh. And then, he has all this facility in his fingers. Poetry and technique don't usually go together, but in his case they really do. That was my first impression; it's why I fell in love with Yundi Li's playing and wanted to work with him.

Yundi Li: When I arrived in Vienna, I was very excited and shy, because even then Maestro Ozawa was one of my favourite conductors. During my youth in China I often saw him on DVD and on television. When I saw Seiji for the first time in person, coming through the door of the Vienna Opera Studio, I suddenly felt more relaxed. I played the Liszt Sonata for him, and he invited me to Japan.

The coupling on this recording is rather unusual. How did it come about? Seiji Ozawa: That was Yundi's decision.

Yundi Li: I just think that these are two wonderful works. Also, not so many people play Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. Everyone knows the Third, of course, a work I play myself. The Second is unjustly neglected, but I'm certain that people will like it too. And it's good for audiences to hear something unusual for a change.

Seiji Ozawa: It was very courageous of Yundi to choose this of all pieces. It seems to me that Prokofiev, who was himself a great pianist, wanted to show off here and demonstrate just how well he could play. It's a real showpiece and, technically speaking, one of the hardest works in the whole piano repertoire.

Yundi Li: That's true. The piece shows almost everything in the way of piano technique. In the cadenzas in the first and fourth movements, everything revolves around the soloist's capabilities. The whole fourth movement is impassioned and aggressive and is incredibly difficult with its wide leaps. But I've been playing the piece for some time and no longer find it quite so hard. I'm also attracted to the piece because it's different from the Romantic works by Chopin and Liszt, for example, with which I'm associated. The Prokofiev Concerto has a very cool temperament.

Prokofiev was 22 when he gave the first performance of his Second Piano Concerto. You're now 24, in other words, more or less the same age as the composer was. Is this a piece that is particularly well suited to young artists?

Yundi Li: Absolutely!

The younger generation seems to react in China very differently to classical music from the way they do over here. In your own country you're fêted like a pop star.

Yundi Li: After I won the Chopin Competition, people in the street in China suddenly knew my name and asked me for my autograph. Since then I've done some TV commercials, which brings in a large audience for classical music. At the moment everyone is so hot for classical music in China. In almost every family the children take piano lessons. So it is very different from here, but it's wonderful, because classical music needs more young energy to continue its tradition. And I think that here in Europe we'll also succeed in building up a new and youthful audience. There are many different ways to present music. You can download it on your iPod, listen to it on the radio, watch musicians on TV.

Do you have an iPod yourself?

Yundi Li: Yes, I do.

What kind of music have you stored on it?

Yundi Li: All kinds of music. I also listen to pop music, Justin Timberlake and Robbie Williams, for example. When I need some rest from the piano, this is something fresh to listen to.

Are there also your own recordings on your iPod?

Yundi Li [laughing]: Oh no. But I also like listening to opera very much. Listening to singers helps a pianist to work out how to play a phrase.

But can you reach the younger generation with a piece like Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto? People booed it at its first performance, and many left the hall.

Seiji Ozawa: It was the same with Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps. That, too, was a great scandal. Now it's a showpiece for orchestras.

Yundi Li: Why shouldn't young people like this piece? The orchestration is incredibly exciting: it sounds a bit like Star Wars.

Seiji Ozawa: It is certainly an extraordinary piece. Prokofiev writes a Romantic melody for the orchestra, for example, while the pianist simultaneously sounds as if he had gone absolutely crazy.

In the third movement - the Intermezzo - all the participants seem to go crazy. It's that harsh ostinato, and everything is so brutal and loud. How do you approach it as a conductor? Do you simply allow your orchestra to let themselves go, or do you still have to worry about discipline and balance?

Seiji Ozawa: I always think of myself as a traffic policeman in this movement. [Ozawa laughs and makes angular movements with his arms.] I just say: now you, now you, no, you wait here.

Ravel's G major Concerto could hardly be more different. Where Prokofiev is dark, weighty and often aggressive, this piece is entirely light-footed, translucent and cheerful.

Yundi Li: Of course, the Ravel has to be played completely differently: more carefree and, above all, more colourfully.

Seiji Ozawa: Ravel was a very smart man. In the second movement, for example, he writes a melody with two beats per bar over a simple waltz accompaniment, so you have this mixed rhythm, a very slow tempo and an orchestration that's very simple but immensely beautiful.

Yundi Li: Whenever I play the second movement, I think of a walk through the woods in autumn, when the leaves on the trees are every conceivable colour. This movement is incredibly calm and relaxing.

Seiji Ozawa: I very much like the way in which Yundi plays this movement. His Romantic vein comes out very distinctly here.

Getting back to the Prokofiev for a moment. That piece must have occupied you for quite a while. How long did you work on it?

Yundi Li: It took me about four months of continuous study up to the first performance.

There are pianists who learn a score by heart before even playing a single note. What is your method?

Yundi Li: First, I look at the score to get a feeling for its harmonies and its structure, to understand where the harmonies go and why the composer wrote exactly this harmony, this tempo, why he makes an accelerando. Then, I try out all these things on the piano, all the details, all the technical things. Colour, tone quality, so many things.

And at which stage do you actually learn it by heart?

Yundi Li: That just comes naturally. When I work on a piece this way, it's already in my memory.

So memorizing the piece is not difficult for you at all?

Yundi Li: No, it's not difficult. I think carefully about the colour and the details. You should not think in terms of notes, but in terms of melody and phrasing, how long to play this phrase and how many harmonic changes there are. And also how to breathe with a phrase. I don't think from note to note.

As a professional musician, you have to be very disciplined.

Yundi Li: That's right. Before a concert I always sleep for one or two hours. This is very important for the energy. Afterwards I go out to eat something, and then I take a bath and drink a glass of red wine.

And after the performance?

Yundi Li: Then I can meet friends. They come to my concerts, and afterwards we go out to eat and have a drink. That's wonderful. I also like to spend time with my friends when I'm not working. Sometimes we drive speedboats near Hong Kong. Sometimes in Asia, I go to pop concerts. A good friend of mine is a pop star in China, and we talk about the differences between his profession and mine.

And you travel the world.

Yundi Li: Yes, I travel a lot. I've made friends in China, in Japan, in America. This is very important for me too. But at the moment I'm mostly busy with my music.